The work of creating a socially just classroom is often one of balancing a pedagogical surplus of initiatives, directions, and possibilities. Expanding the literary canon, pushing back against white supremacist norms of classroom discourse and production, and creating accessible assignments, materials, and activities all involve research, restructuring, and integration that can be labor-intensive and potentially overwhelming. Additionally, instructors often have to balance between the goals of their own classroom and institutional imperatives, ensuring students gain the preparation and cultural capital that will enable them to succeed in classrooms with traditional academic expectations.

The 2nd Annual 9-Online Virtual Baseball Conference (October 12-13, 2023) invites original  unpublished papers that study all aspects of baseball, with particular emphasis on history,  literature, and social policy implications. Abstracts only, not to exceed 300 words, should be  submitted no later than July 16, 2023, to co-directors Willie Steele (wdsteele@lipscomb.edu) and David Pegram (david.pegram@paradisevalley.edu) for the abstract committee’s consideration. Presentations will be limited to 15 minutes.  

“The End of the Human(ities)”

In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois explained that the problem of the color line was a problem of (meta)physical and educational implications for those who “still seek, the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think.” Du Bois’s “freedom” connected the liberation of the body, soul, and mind—the desire to live and learn unbounded—to the human. He introduced a quandary still relevant today: To think and be human is to think about how to study life through the “humanities.”

55th NeMLA Annual Convention, March 7-10, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts

Systems of excess: unsettling visions of the unwanted and grotesque, pushing the limits of our collective imaginary. This is the very texture of horror. For the last few years, the NeMLA convention has allowed our growing community of scholars to lay the foundation for a new trajectory of horror criticism —one that focuses on the class politics at play in horror cinema, as well as on potential materialist analyses of the genre and its spectatorship. The 2024 “Surplus” theme aligns with the theoretical landscape we have been exploring, adding a new level of specificity to the academic discourse we wish to collectively build.

The Northeast Popular/American Culture Association’s Politics, Civic Life, and Pop Culture area welcomes paper submissions from graduate students, educators, and independent researchers of popular culture. NEPCA’s 2023 fall virtual conference will be held October 12 – October 14, 2023 via Zoom. The deadline for proposals is August 1, 2023.

We encourage panel proposals as well as individual submissions.

Papers are generally 15–20 minutes in length. We also encourage works in progress, and informal presentations. 

This area considers the intersection of politics, civic life, and popular culture. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: